Exhaust Leak

[Tomm]

So I took the car to inspection and it turns out I have an exhaust leak (I thought I had been hearing a different engine sound lately).

I was wondering if any of you guys had the same problem and how you dealt with it. I suppose I should put a rag in the tail pipe and have a look to see if I can find the leak. I am reluctant to get under the car (again!) and kind of feel like just giving it to the mechanic to be fixed and do something else with my spare time.

How do you approach this issue? Replace the part in question, or try to patch it up? If you leave it to someone else to be fixed, do you go to a special exhaust shop or just the regular mechanic? Also, if I were to replace the part that's broken, is it a good idea to try to find a salvaged part to save some money, or is that just asking for more trouble?

I drive a 96 A4 Quattro. Any known common exhaust issues on these cars?

[discontained]

Best bet is to put the car on some ramps and crawl up under there. Hard to tell where its coming from sometimes have someone blip the throttle and peek around.

Common places on my car was the flex pipe, cat or downpipe. If you feel like you cant do it then take it to a exhaust shop and see if they can find it for you then use some JB weld if you want :P

[Euromike]

jb weld ftw. Who needs exhaust shops

[walky_talky20]

If the rest of the system is in good order, repairing a pipe by welding in a small new section, or cutting and welding in a new flex joint is common. If part of it rusted through and is leaking, and the rest of the pipe is really rusty, you don't want to do a repair. It'll just break somewhere else next month. At that point you'd want to look at aftermarket replacement exhaust parts (like Bosal), or a quote from an exhaust shop. Generally a regular mechanic shop won't have much ability to bend their own pipes to recreate a large section other than for a small repair, it depends on the shop though. Their options would normally be a small repair to the existing pipes or replacing the entire section of pipe (downpipe, intermediate pipe, tailpipe/muffler, etc). An exhaust shop could obviously create whatever was required.

[Tomm]

seems like good stuff, hopfully it's a small hole and i can use something like that. As long as it takes me through inspection. will have a look at it in the upcomming week.

Thanks, that info helps alot.

[A4Rob]

I would just bring it to a shop to have welded. For a easy weld job fix, it will be worth not doing on your driveway with jackstands.

[Tomm]

It was a small leak.

some JB Weld fixed it and i got the sticker. Thanks for the input.

[J Ozzie]

yeah i need to fix my flex from bottoming out too much on my 3 ft speed bumps :@